Blue Haven Marina, Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands

Ocean Gem
Geoff & Eileen Mander
Fri 16 Jan 2015 15:50

Date: Friday 16th January 2015

Position: 21:49.21N 72:08.89W

 

We left Clarencetown on Thursday morning as soon as there was sufficient light to see our way out of the harbour and set off towards Mayaguana, about 110 miles to the south east.  There was not enough wind to sail, and it stayed that way all day. It was a tad dull, but then I had to keep reminding myself to be grateful as under normal circumstances in this part of the world we would be facing quite strong headwinds and a contrary current.

 

Our original intention had been to arrive off Abrahams Bay, the main anchorage in Mayaguana, just before dawn and then enter the anchorage in daylight so that would be able to see and avoid the numerous coral heads in the bay.  We actually arrived around 2:00am so rather than wait several hours for sunrise we decided to keep motoring towards The Turks & Caicos Islands.

 

As we got close to Providenciales we were called by Provo Radio who put us through a quite an intensive barrage of questions concerning us and our boat.  I was a little unhappy being asked to provide some of this information over an open radio transmission that anyone could listen in to, but then the radio/radar surveillance station is a relatively new toy for the local bureaucracy to play with and I don’t suppose they have yet applied their minds to the matter of information security for visiting boats.

 

We made our way to the eastern side of Providenciales and were met by a pilot boat from Blue Haven marina who guided us through the reef entrance and into a marina berth.

 

We had been at sea for just less than 30 hours and had motored for almost the entire way covering about 180 miles.